Chapter XI
XI
… Such marks appear on the skin almost as burns, but come painlessly to their bearers, nearly always before those bestowed reach the age of their majority.
Some few infants are born already marked, but regardless of the age at which the image appears, it is viewed as a calling to faith and service, whether as a layperson or a religious.
A goddess-marked soul is considered illuminated by the goddesses forever, and secure in their light and their regard.
The only way to sever that bond and shatter that regard is to remove one’s mark with fire or a blade.
—FROM UNDERSTANDING THE RELIGIOUS PRACTICES OF THE HAND: A GUIDE FOR VESPERIN SHADOWS
Ariana woke disoriented in the king’s chambers.
Leaving her own wing and seeking his bed for a second time was a dim memory—she was muddle-headed and dizzy and weak.
It wasn’t only when she feared some attempt on his life that she sought out Orden’s quarters.
A deep, fathomless part of her took over when she was dogged by fear, and brought her to the king, as if Orden was a force who could ward off any danger.
He could not stop her bleeding, though. The sheets and her nightdress were a swath of crimson.
Looking at it, and knowing how the court would gossip, Ariana felt terribly alone.
For the briefest, tantalizing while, that sense of lostness had abated while Fia was with her.
A friendly face in the middle of an alien and enemy court.
It would have made all the difference to her, had Fia chosen to stay.
The Priest was a comfort, but he could not be kept close as a nurse might be, or a handmaiden.
Beside Ariana, the infant prince made a mewling sound and stretched in his fitful sleep.
She had sworn never to put a child to breast again after being parted from Celina, but necessity forced her hand.
She’d fed him after finding Fia gone, and brought him with her into Orden’s bed, hardly knowing where she was.
Now, pulling the baby closer and letting him nuzzle at her, Ariana’s tears spilled over.
She felt the sudden tug and pull of his tiny mouth, the tingle of her body responding, heard the infinitely calming sounds of his breath catching as he swallowed draft after draft of what she had to offer.
Every part of Ariana felt bruised as she watched and listened to her fragile son.
She could not help seeing Celina, seeing her little star-marked daughter, seeing the blood of babies she’d lost half-formed before them.
She looked at that infant boy and found an overlay of ghosts, some living, some dead, but all beyond her reach.
Ariana felt like a ghost herself as she dozed and nursed Honoria’s heir, then stirred with what felt like a supreme effort.
She shed her soiled nightdress in favor of a long white shirt of Orden’s, then took the baby in her arms, knowing it was past time to return to the queen’s chambers.
The journey did not require her to face the humiliation of a public stair, or even of a servants’ passage.
One of Orden’s long study windows could be used as a doorway to an outlook, just large enough for two, which jutted from the face of the mountain.
Half the outlook backed onto that window, the other to what seemed like solid stone.
But if one knew the right way to touch the rock, a concealed door opened, behind which was a secret stair.
It had its egress in the queen’s chambers and was the reason Orden had given Ariana the wing she inhabited.
They could come and go as they wished, without the prying eyes of the court witnessing how often or how seldom Ariana and the king sought each other out.
The moonlit night was cold despite the season, and Ariana shivered as she stepped onto the windy lookout, then plunged into the darkness of the secret stair.
She did not mind the dark as a rule, but she felt so weak and tremulous that visions of falling or dropping the baby plagued her.
She clung to the little prince tightly and sought each downward step with care.
Coming to her own chamber felt like entering another world.
A wealth of hot coals still glowed on the hearth, and Ariana welcomed their warmth.
She went directly to the fireside, laying the sleeping prince in his bassinet beside it and then washing herself in a basin as best she could, before putting on a fresh pair of padded linen breeches.
Instead of changing into one of her own nightdresses, she tied a quilted robe over Orden’s shirt—the fading scent of him on the fabric made her feel a little stronger, a little less afraid.
Ariana settled herself by the hearth with her son and stirred up the coals, adding wood from the basket nearby.
In the normal course of things, she was the center around which summer council revolved.
Now, it progressed without her, a charade of peace.
Ariana wrapped her arms around herself, convinced for a moment that if she let go, she would fall to pieces.
And no matter the cost, she must never falter.
The queen stayed just as she was for several long minutes, staring unseeingly at the shut door to her chambers. At last, she drew in a deep breath and gathered her focus.
“You can do this,” she murmured under her breath, because she needed to hear it from someone, and there was no one else. “You can keep on. Get up now, it’s all right.”
Rising, Ariana gathered up her son once more and silently thanked the stars that he’d come into the world an easy, placid baby, happy to eat and sleep and sleep still more.
It was no longer late but very early, yet Orden would be at his table—he always was, when the court dined together.
Ari found her way to the banquet hall, pointedly ignoring the stares and whispers from courtiers who found her state of undress amusing.
She’d known they would, but to put herself in the garb of a queen would have been one task too many.
She’d have crumbled under the weight of it.
The hall was a vast, windowless stone room set within the castle’s inner reaches, carved from the mountain’s heart.
A hundred ruddy torches lit the chamber, but it was always cool there, thanks to the encompassing rock.
Table after table flanked by benches filled the space, but more than half the banqueters had retired already.
Some others had retreated to the hearths along the banquet hall’s edges, where they played music or games of chance.
Orden sat alone at the high table on a dais at the hall’s far end.
Usually he had courtiers he’d singled out for the honor of feasting with him, or the Priest or Lucian, or a guard he’d chosen to elevate.
Not tonight. Tonight the king slouched in his chair, staring unseeingly at the cup in his hand.
It was so like the attitude Ariana had only recently fallen into that her heart smote her.
He looked worn, her Inver king. When she’d first come to the mountain, he viewed outlasting his courtiers at table as a conquest, and approached it with a fierce and foreign jubilance.
Now, he seemed joyless. Ariana hated that—she’d harbored a strange, sacrilegious desire to please him ever since their first meeting.
Like an arrow from the string, she crossed the banquet hall and sank to her knees before the king.
“Ari!” Orden’s face lit with straightforward delight, followed by immediate concern. “You ought to be in bed. What did you come down here for?”
“I’m sorry,” she said softly. “I don’t mean to disturb you. And I’m sorry for what happened in the audience hall too—for the blood I offered. I intend to make it up to you.”
“Come here,” Orden said, beckoning to her to join him on the dais.
Ariana did so, and when she was at his side, Orden pushed his ornate chair back and moved to draw her down onto his knee. He often made such displays of affection, and Ariana could never tell if they were the result of impulse or a vain attempt to remind the court of his regard for her.
“No. I’m still bleeding, I won’t risk making a mess of you.” She took a step away from him and dropped into the chair at his side.
“Let me see the boy.” Orden held out his arms, and Ariana handed over their son as tension drained from her. It had been wearing on her unconsciously, knowing there was no one to tend the little prince but her alone.
“We’ll have his naming as soon as the Priest is ready,” Orden said, looking down at his son with a proud smile.
“And I know it’s tradition for the king to stand alone before the gods, but I want you with me when I dedicate our son to them.
I mislike the way the court speaks of you, and it’s grown worse since you bled before them.
Afon said things at our first council session—insinuations about you.
Gileta intervened before I could, but I really think we ought to have Lucian kill Afon. ”
“You’ve tried,” Ariana pointed out. “Three times now, unless there were other attempts I was not privy to. It never works.”
Would that his gods or her goddesses—whichever might be listening—ensured Afon was as ineffective in any schemes against Orden’s life and throne. The words of Afon’s oath in the cavern sanctuary still resounded in Ariana like echoes of a war drum, and she flinched at their malevolent pulse.
Orden scowled but continued to hold his son gently. “What is the use of having a spymaster and assassin who believes he pulls all the strings at my court and across the Hand, if he cannot even kill one man at my request? I mean to try again. It would save us a war, you know.”
Ariana ignored him. She always did when he became especially Inver. Instead, she reached out and laid a hand on his arm. “Orden.”